“You Can’t Trust Anybody”: The Mexicans Caught Up In The Drug War Just South Of Texas

By
Jo Tuckman, The Guardian
on May 14, 2015

When Carlos Ulivarri heard that a body had been dumped by the side of a road just outside his hometown of Rio Bravo, a few miles south of McAllen, Texas, he knew he had to act fast.

But he did not even consider contacting the authorities.

Hours earlier, Ulivarri’s son, Luís Carlos, 23, had been shot in a bar, and then dragged into the night after an altercation with a group of men presumed to be members of a local drug cartel.

At first, Ulivarri held out hope his son might be alive. But at 10am the next morning, a friend called to say that a corpse had been spotted on a road outside town which marks the frontline between two warring cartel factions.

Ulivarri, the president of the Rio Bravo chamber of commerce, knew that the body might disappear for good if he did not move quickly, but he did not want to risk a confrontation with either gang, who are both known to monitor the road.

So instead of calling the police and waiting for an escort, he drove alone to the site, bundled his son’s body into his car, and brought him home for the last time.